


leave the silver city

by saffronHeliotrope



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol, Crossdressing Kink, Dubious Consent, Dysfunctional Relationships, Formalwear, M/M, Presentation Play, Sexual Violence, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 05:30:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1014706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saffronHeliotrope/pseuds/saffronHeliotrope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the privacy of the dim hallway, you shoot yourself a tiny smile of triumph in the mirror. You think you may finally have done it -- maybe, just maybe, you have finally outmaneuvered your brilliant, exasperating brother. There’s no way he could be expecting this. He probably thinks you’ll turn up in a baby blue thrift-store suit with threadbare polyester cuffs, elbows shiny with wear. It’s the kind of thing he’d do and pass it off as ironic. But tonight, you’re going all out; you’ve shot so far past irony that you’re right back at sincerity again, and if you’re secretly hoping that the sincerity takes his breath away a little bit, well, maybe that’s just the kind of sick fuck you are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	leave the silver city

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Chivalry, and Other Personal Failings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/629425) by [elegantanagram (Lir)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/elegantanagram). 



> This story was written for [Ven](http://www.madragingven.tumblr.com), with whom I once had a conversation about Striders in formalwear. He asked "Suits or evening gowns?" and I replied, "Both." Ven is a brilliant artist and was my first and greatest advocate in the Homestuck fandom, and his tumblr reblogs are really the main reason that anyone ever read my work. For all that, this is a somewhat questionable gift to give such a good friend, though it is given with love.
> 
> I also owe a huge debt of inspiration to [Lira](http://www.elegantanagram.tumblr.com), whose astonishing story [Chivalry, and Other Personal Failings](http://archiveofourown.org/works/629425?view_adult=true) was also part of the proliferation of Daves-in-dresses which a number of us laid at Ven's feet. It's an amazing work, which I read, absorbed, and then like a total schmuck forgot about. Obviously the aesthetic and subject matter of this story was heavily influenced by that one, though ultimately they take different tones and different directions. In the spirit of honesty, though, I'm going to call this an unintentional but infinitely grateful remix.
> 
> This is not happystuck. Please do heed the warnings.
> 
>  _I think the kids are in trouble_  
>  _do not know what all the troubles are for_  
>  _give them ice for their fevers_  
>  _you're the only thing I ever want anymore_  
>  -The National, [Conversation 16](http://youtu.be/HEE0OGJUE-4)

_“And kiddo? Dress nice, for once.”_

That’s what he said, so that’s what you did. You saved every penny of the scratch you made on six weeks’ worth of coding and web revenue, plus that one DJing gig out in Ojai you were almost too embarrassed to go to but which actually went decently ok once you got your sorry ass out the door. You took a sizable chunk out of your savings account, and dipped into the “Dirk’s College Fund Or Some Shit” account that Dave didn’t think you knew existed, let alone had access to. And one day when he was away on a 16-hour shoot, you combed your hair forward, put on the most unremarkable clothes you could find in either of your closets, slapped on a baseball cap like a garden-variety douchebag, and strolled out past the paparazzi. So nonchalant, like chalant wasn’t even a thing.

After that, it was a cakewalk to take a taxi to the most disgustingly gorgeous boutique on Robertson Boulevard, all glass and chrome and black leather, so edgy you might cut yourself just walking in the door. Once the unctuous salesmen realized the kind of cash you were ready to drop, they swooned all over you.

Two weeks and a handful of fittings later, you’re ready for your birthday dinner in the nicest suit you’ve ever seen, and you’ve seen a lot of suits.

You hover in the entryway of Dave’s horrible Beverly Hills apartment, checking yourself in the gaudy gold-framed mirrors while Dave finishes primping. You straighten the already-straight jacket, smooth the impeccable lines, brush at imaginary lint, but even your exacting perfectionist eye can’t find a single fault with your appearance. The suit is exquisite. Black as your heart, sleek as sin, and the fabric is a silk wool that feels like pure sex -- at least, you’d like to think it does, since your hermitic tendencies coupled with the fact that you’ve only had one real object for your lust since you were old enough for your first wet dream make for a distinct lack of empirical data with which to compare your imaginings. No matter. You allow yourself an uncharacteristic moment of hedonism and stroke your hands down your sides. The fabric has the subtle sheen of beasts that hunt by night, of creatures that lurk.

You turn, admiring the shape in the mirror. Ordinarily you’re in a perpetual state of angst about your spare and rangy frame, broad but unfinished, which a hundred thousand push-ups have honed but done little to bulk out. But in this suit, you look bladed, coiled; it frames your shoulders, nips in flawlessly at your waist, somehow turning adolescent incompleteness into a lean and feral grace.

At the boutique, the tailor had actually whimpered softly when you peeled off your hoodie to be measured. You’d pretended not to hear, but you had, and the rush of power was heady and toxic and wholly unfamiliar.

Details: one crisp half-inch of white cuff at your wrists. Black silk pocket square. Slim trousers, no break, hems just resting on the insteps of your black leather shoes, softly shining. The understated silver cufflinks that Rose gave you when you turned sixteen, and which probably cost half as much as the suit itself. Narrow black tie. Even your hair is cooperating today, swept up and back, not a wisp out of place.

In the privacy of the dim hallway, you shoot yourself a tiny smile of triumph in the mirror. You think you may finally have done it -- maybe, just maybe, you have finally outmaneuvered your brilliant, exasperating brother. There’s no way he could be expecting this. He probably thinks you’ll turn up in a baby blue thrift-store suit with threadbare polyester cuffs, elbows shiny with wear. It’s the kind of thing he’d do and pass it off as ironic. But tonight, you’re going all out; you’ve shot so far past irony that you’re right back at sincerity again, and if you’re secretly hoping that the sincerity takes his breath away a little bit, well, maybe that’s just the kind of sick fuck you are.

God, you’re so tired of LA. You hate the smog, you hate the shoddy 1950s storefront look of half of the city and the slick soulless sheen of the other half. You hate the plastic people and their shrill voices and shouty parties. You want nothing more than to take Dave and your machines and go home -- home to ugly honest Houston where it’s just the two of you in your high-rise fortress for days on end, junk food and bad television and swords on the roof. You never really have him all to yourself, but at home you try your damnedest, and without the immediate pressures of his work you can distract and wheedle and manipulate him into giving you more of his time.

You adjust your tie infinitesimally and remember with a hot guilty little thrill: random hipchecking in the hall, jostling with elbows for real estate at the tiny bathroom mirror. His hands brusquely checking you over for damage after a strife. You never get enough of him, so any physical contact, no matter how rough or fleeting, gets catalogued and filed away in your memory. And the night he fell asleep against you on the futon, and you -- sick, elated -- didn’t move a muscle for hours while the tv droned out reruns and infomercials, memorizing the rise and fall of his chest, the weight of his body leaning on your shoulder, heavy and limp, the impression of his outflung arm burned into your leg --

_Stop_ , you tell yourself abruptly. _No. Tamp it down._

In the mirror, your face behind your shades is as impassive as ever. You study yourself the way you would a painting in a museum or an ad on the subway. There’s not a flicker of what’s going on inside -- neither your _acknowledge me claim me love me_ desperation, nor your twisty-butterfly anticipation for dinner tonight, being out with him in this shitty image-conscious town, being seen with him, being seen as his. Good.

Dave’s door opens at last, and there’s a clatter of loud footsteps coming down the hall. You turn from the mirror, saying, “Fucking finally, bro, I’m starv--” but your words crash to a halt and the floor drops out from under you because he’s

he’s wearing

he’s wearing a cranberry-red evening gown that hits you like a sledgehammer directly to the frontal lobe: silk-wrapped body and a skirt that trails down from his hips in complicated slinky bias-cut swirls, delicate beaded straps lying just so across his collarbones, neck and wrists and ears dripping with glittering jewelry and _fuck_ this is your _bro_ in a _dress._

Oh fuck he knows he knows _he knows._

You hear a little huff of a laugh and tear your attention up to his face. “Your mouth is open, little man,” he says. “Better take care of that.”

Your jaw snaps shut with a click of teeth, and you blaze with white-hot indignation because you hate when he calls you that like you’re still a little kid, but also a horrible sick-making blush of shame because Jesus Christ he looks good, he looks fucking beautiful, and what the _fuck_ is he doing.

“What the fuck are you doing,” you say, and your voice wobbles, dangerously close to cracking.

He gives you a lazy smirk. “Oh, Dirk baby, you always know just what to say to make a girl feel her best.” He pulls his phone out of the ridiculous sparkly clutch he’s holding, and pushes his shades to the top of his head to fire off a text or two. While he’s looking down, you see that he’s wearing makeup -- goddamn, he’s wearing eyeliner and shadow and mascara, which he sure as shit wasn’t wearing an hour ago when he got home, and unless he’s got a makeup artist squirreled away in his gross-as-hell opulent bathroom that means that he did it himself. Where the blithering fuck did he learn to put on eye makeup.

Is this something he does often.

You don’t ask.

Oh God, he _knows_ , he must have somehow cracked your browser history.

He bangs the elevator button with his closed fist and the private keyed entry slides open. You follow him inside, dumbstruck. The goddamn dress plunges to a V in the back, dropping down by some horrifying miracle of engineering to expose the long lean planes of his back, creamy pale skin lightly striped with iridescent pink scars. He must have some kind of corset on -- he’s slender, but not _that_ slender -- but you can’t for the life of you figure out how it must work (satin and boning and laces, tight tight tight, what color is it against his skin) and then you’re distracted by the swish of his hips under his dress -- Jesus, he doesn’t always walk like that, does he? -- and you’re following so close that you almost walk straight into him when he stops and turns.

“Easy, kiddo,” he says, and you want to throw up.

You face stonily forward in the elevator, watching him in the mirrored door. He lounges easily, gracefully, against the back wall. He looks too tall, wrongly tall, and in a shock of déjà-vu, you realize that you’ve become accustomed to being the same height ever since your last growth spurt a year or two ago. He sees you looking, measuring him up, and extends one foot lazily out from under that byzantine skirt. Fucker is wearing stiletto heels, complicated straps encircling his ankles and high arches. You feel small and young and wrong-footed. He looks perfectly at ease. His gaze through his shades makes your skin crawl with discomfort.

“Nice suit,” he says at last, and your hot sick flush fires right up again and your throat is sour with bile, because you don’t know if he’s being serious or not and there’s no way you’re asking him. Goddammit, you _liked_ this suit; you were so proud of yourself. You feel like an idiot.

“Jesus, bro,” you grit out before you can stop yourself. “Why?”

“Why not?” he counters, poker-faced. You bite the inside of your cheek.

The elevator dings, approaching the lobby. He pushes himself easily to standing, looks you up and down. “C’mon, buddy, unclench a little -- it’s your birthday,” he says, and he sounds positively cheerful. “We’re gonna make the cutest couple this town has ever seen. This year’s Brangelina, without the cast of a Feed-The-World ad in tow.” You refuse to take the bait. The elevator doors open, and he slips his arm through yours, tugs you forward. You imagine that your arm is a prosthetic device, a robot limb, separate from you, not touching his skin, his silken red side. “They’re going to love you,” he says, steering you toward the doors.

At that, you try to plant your feet. “‘They?’ Fuck, bro, you _told_ them?”

He grins at that, swift and hard and mirthless. “No sense in a publicity stunt if there’s no publicity, am I right?” He tugs you along as if you were still five years old and trailing after him too slowly in a grocery store. Dammit, he shouldn’t be as strong as he is.

He pushes open the glass doors and the flashbulbs start, blinding and insistent, hammering through your shades. The paparazzi are yelling immediately, a delighted roar, and among the cries of “Dave! Over here, Mr. Strider!” you hear your name thrown in occasionally. You resist the urge to react. Dave is stone-faced as usual but you can tell that he’s preening for the cameras, shoulders thrown defiantly back, swirling the skirt as he moves, like he’s on the red carpet and not being harassed by scuzzballs outside his own apartment. He’s gorgeous and he knows it. He drapes an arm around your shoulders possessively and you breathe deep and fight the blush creeping up your neck. You hate the few inches his shoes gives him on you with every fiber of your being.

These pictures are going to be everywhere in a few hours, and you’re going to look like a shadow, Dave Strider’s pathetic kid brother, just another prop for his inscrutable shenanigans.

“What’s the occasion, Mr. Strider?” someone calls.

“It’s my little bro’s birthday,” Dave says. “Taking the kid out for a night on the town.” He moves as if to tousle your hair and you shift under his arm, subtly but enough to send him a message; if he so much as touches your meticulous do, he’ll be down an arm in a matter of seconds, you don’t care who’s watching. He relents and settles for squeezing your shoulder, almost fondly. Nobody seems to pick up on your little exchange; nobody ever does.

He seems to decide suddenly that he’s had enough, and makes some kind of high sign; his burly driver starts clearing a path through the horde between the door and the curb. Dave hustles you into the blessed silence of the limo. He gives the photographers a last fuck-off wave before the driver slams the door. He settles back beside you with a little smirk that’s the Dave equivalent of a shit-eating grin.

“I can’t believe you,” you say.

“Oh, don’t even start,” he says contentedly. “That was brilliant. You’re brilliant, little mister perfect stoicism. The internet is going to eat that shit up.” When you don’t say anything, he examines your face in the light of the passing streetlights. “Jesus -- are you embarrassed?  Did your embarrassing big brother embarrass you?”

“What? God. No.” And it’s true; you honestly couldn’t care less what garbage the tabloids say about you. You struggle to find words without sounding like a whining kid, and basically fail. “You turned my birthday into a fucking publicity grab, you colossal douche.”

“Oh, poor widdle baby, a-bloo-hoo-hoo. Did you want me to throw a party like when you were seven? Order a god-awful cheap-ass cake and get all your little friends hopped up on sugar and food coloring?” You want to punch him but you don’t dare get near him, so you cross your arms. “Shit, I should have done this up right, now that I can finally afford it. You’d have loved that, right, babe? Should I have rented a moon bounce? A pony ride?”

“Fuck you.” He’s been at your browser history. You’re sure of it.

“Aww, cheer up, petunia. Nobody likes a crybaby. I’m hurt that you haven’t told me how pretty I look. Positively wounded.”

You glare. “You look like Alexander McQueen’s worst nightmare. You look like RuPaul and Madonna had a horrifying love child. You look like a sweaty pervert’s most disgusting wet dream and--” and then your jaw snaps shut because what does that make you. He’s grinning.

“And I guess you’d know, huh,” he says sweetly and reaches out to pat your cheek. You smack his hand away and refuse to say another word. He knows, he knows, you just don’t know how much he knows.

He takes you to the obscenely expensive new steakhouse that all the horrible rich assholes in Hollywood have been drooling over lately. He must have dropped a nice little chunk of change to bribe the maître d’ for a reservation, the way the man practically swoons when you walk in, but hey, it’s not like Dave can’t afford it.

The other diners stare as you are shown to your table. Dave is all poise and you trail along in his wake.

You order a salad and the truffle macaroni and cheese, and ask them to hold the truffles, just to be a contrary little bitch. He orders the $180 wagyu ribeye and a few hundred dollars worth of wine. Your mac and cheese is good, but not worth the price tag; his steak is bloody-purple and oozing, and he devours it with great relish. He pours out nearly half a bottle of wine into the huge balloon of a wine glass that the waiter was too cowardly to take away from your place, and dumps most of the rest into his own. The wine is the same color as his dress when he brings his glass to his lips.

You don’t talk much during the meal. He rambles, talking about scripts, music, side projects, twisty garbled tangents, chasing down the labyrinth of his bizarre logic. He gets more and more expansive with the wine; you get more and more withdrawn. He calls you sullen; you call him an attention-whoring asshole.

By the time they bring out two dishes of Valrhona soufflé with crème anglaise and gianduja gelato (one with a birthday candle shoved in and wobbling precariously) you can’t do anything but stare at the delicate winged arches of his collarbones, the span of his shoulders. You want to sweep everything off the table and lunge at him, tear the pretty little straps down with your teeth. Instead you pick at your dessert and stare at his mouth as he shovels in drippy chocolate and cream, talking with his mouth full, gesticulating with his spoon.

You abscond to the men’s room while he’s settling the bill. You press your forehead to the mirror and shake, considering the relative merit of escaping out the window and walking home, or possibly hitching your way back to Houston where your shabby apartment sits empty and waiting. Or hopping a plane to New York, or joining the circus, or loading your pockets with rocks and walking out into the ocean.

Back in the limo, he asks what you want to do next -- catch a late movie, go to a club? For a moment your traitor brain suggests getting him even more drunk, grinding up against him on a crowded dance floor, pushing him into a shadowy corner. But then you imagine the crowds, and Dave’s mocking mouth, and a wave of exhaustion sweeps over you. As if he’d let you get the upper hand in any but your most desperate fantasies. You tell him that you want to go home. The rest of the ride is quiet; you sneak glances as the headlights and streetlights shift across his face. You moved to this horrible city for him, and you still feel like he’s fifteen hundred miles away from you.

A few diehard paparazzi are still outside your building when you pull up, and Dave turns on the charm as you climb out of the limo. Perhaps it’s the wine, but he’s unusually friendly with them, answering questions, trading barbs. The photographers press their advantage until they have you pushed almost up to the doors of your building. The doorman hovers uncomfortably nearby.

Dave puts a halt to it at last. “Ok, guys, this has been fun, but I have to put the little tyke to bed,” he says. His hand slips down from your shoulder where it’s been resting, down your back and up under the tail of your jacket -- oh God can they _see_ \-- and then that’s his hand on your ass and he actually squeezes. Not just a little honk, but a big sloppy handful, like a promise. You try not to jerk in surprise but it’s a near thing, and they saw, they must have seen, there’s no way they didn’t see. Dave smirks. Flashes pop.

You feel like your life is ending.

In the elevator you seethe. This is it, you tell yourself. You swear to God you’re leaving. You’ll go back to Houston, or you’ll go somewhere completely new, change your name, ditch the shades, get some normal-colored contacts. Dave is rambling about something -- walruses, maybe, you don’t even care -- and you have to run, have to get out from under his shadow, have to get away from how desperately you lo--

The elevator dings and opens into Dave’s entryway. You storm out and he follows.

While you dig your fingernails into your palms and try to get your bearings he tosses his clutch bag at a little table and misses wildly. He pulls his drippy clip earrings off one after the other and chucks them at the wall. “Well, that was an astonishing success,” he says, wobbling on his high heels. He must actually be drunk. You’ve never seen him unsteady on his feet.

“How could you,” you grit out, voice holding but barely.

“How could I what?” He teeters on one foot, trying to work the straps of his ridiculous shoes and failing. “C’mere, sugar, help me out with these.”

You don’t move. “You know. You obviously know everything. How could you, in front of everyone.” Your voice is still steady, but you’re so cold, so far away.

He stares at you, impassive. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific, babe. I do a lot of things in front of a lot of people.” He leans back against the little table and waggles one foot at you. “Chop chop.”

You’ll do it; you’ll always do it. You drop to your knees in front of him with a groan. The entryway is dim but your fingers are used to delicate tasks; you find the little buckle, work the narrow strap out of the eyelet. Your fingers slip against his stockings as you slide the shoe off his foot. He sighs as you toss the shoe away. “Fuck, that’s better. I don’t know how women deal with these things. Rose makes it look so easy, the bitch.”

He lifts the other foot for you, and you take your time, wine pounding in your head, euphoric and miserable. “I know you’ve figured it out,” you say, stroking your thumb over the high arch of his foot. You can’t look up at him, so you watch your hands, cupping the back of his ankle with one hand as you work the shoe off.

“Figured what out?” His voice is low, almost gentle.

Almost of its own volition, almost as if you didn’t mean to, your hand slides up his calf, under his skirt. “Don’t make me say it,” you whisper, and lift his foot, press your lips to the inside of his ankle.

There’s the tiny hiss of an indrawn breath, barely louder than the sound of your fingertips skating over his stockings, but he doesn’t say anything. You kiss him again an inch higher, push the skirt up, kiss again. The silk is slippery in your hands and your pulse is thundering in your ears and flooding your groin. With each one you’re saying, _I hate you, I need you, did you do this for me, how far will you let me go._

When your lips are somewhere just north of his knee, and your hands find the tops of his thigh-highs and the straps of a garter belt, he says calmly, “Dirk.”

There it is: the barrier thrown up, the locked door. You drop your forehead against his knee. This is intolerable. Your fingers clench involuntarily, digging into his skin, finding their way under the little elastic straps. “Maybe you can explain something to me,” you say conversationally. You pluck idly at the garter straps, letting them snap back then soothing his skin with little circles of your thumbs. “Maybe you can tell me exactly what you’re playing at, because I’m getting some _mixed fucking signals_ here _._ ” You pull harder at one strap, and it slaps back against his thigh with a satisfying _snick_.

“Watch it, little man,” he says.

Anger flares up, searing bright. “I know the joke stops being funny as soon as you explain it,” you say, pulling on the strap again, “but let’s just assume that I’m an idiot kid who needs it spelled out.” You tug harder until the silk threads begin to protest around the little button of the clip. He squirms, and you grip his leg tighter with your other hand, trying to somehow telegraph what you mean into his skin, because you’re sure as fuck not going to say it out loud. Is he the bait here? Are you? You squirm where you kneel, shifting against the seam at your crotch where your tight dress pants are starting to constrict.

The silk threads of his stockings part and rip; you watch dispassionately as a run ladders its way down his leg. You pull harder, opening more rents, encouraging them with your fingers. “Have you collected quite enough data on Subject A, one Dirk Strider, lab rat aged nineteen years? Anything else you want to try so you can drive him absolutely batshit insane?” His stocking shreds beautifully, and your stomach is jumpy with a horrible jangling excitement. You lean in and press your lips against the tear, against silk, against skin.

He sighs, for all the world like you were eight years old again and accidentally scratched one of his records or cut yourself on a sword blade. You burn, and haul back on the garter strap; it snaps his skin with a crack that echoes all down your spine.

He jumps. “Fuck, Dirk,” he says, and there’s a bite of real anger in his voice for the first time. “Stop acting like a whiny little kid.”

“Then stop treating me like one, asshole.”

He sighs that disappointed sigh again. “I know you like to think you’re a misunderstood genius and God knows you’re smarter than most of the idiots in this world, but you’ve gotta learn how to take a joke, buddy.”

“This is a joke? A _joke?_ ” You jump to your feet as the dress goes slithering down his legs. You’re losing your cool but you can’t be assed to care -- you feel like you’re going to explode in incandescent rage. “You find my one bulletproof kink and you -- _you_ \-- trot me in front of half of Hollywood so you can humiliate me on my fucking _birthday?_ Fuck you, bro, and fuck me for even caring.”

He scoffs at you and moves like he’s going to push past you. You grab his wrist.

He looks at your hand on his arm and you fight your reflexive urge to jump back and apologize. “We’re done here,” he says, low and dangerous.

“We’re not done until I say we are.” You almost manage it without stumbling over the words. He’s exerting his power over you again and you hate it.

“What do you want, Dirk?” he says, pushing into your space, mocking you with the very closeness that makes your body yearn toward his. “Want me to apologize? Want me to find whatever booboo I put on your precious little snowflake psyche and kiss it better? Doesn’t work that way, baby.”

“I want you to make up your mind,” you shout in his face, shaking him hard by the arm. “If you’re going to be my guardian, then I want you to start fucking guarding me, okay? And if you’re not, then I want you to stop being such a fucking cocktease, and I want you to stop whoring yourself out to _everyone but me!"_  


He stares at you, utterly blank. The steam goes out of your anger and your desire in one rush. You let go of his arm and try not to look at the white bloodless marks left by your fingers.

“I’ll go. Fuck’s sake. I’ll go.” you say, exhausted and defeated. “I’ll just pack up my stuff and get out. You don’t have to deal with this -- with me. I’ll just get out of your hair.”

“Dirk, the _fuck_ are you talking about.”

And with that, your anger is back in full blossom. You slam your fists onto the table on either side of his hips. “ _Don’t fuck with me, Dave_ ,” you snarl in despair. “I know you’ve been on my computer. I know you’ve read my stuff. Don’t look at me, dressed like that, and tell me it’s all a joke, like you didn’t know what this would do to me. You know how much I want you. You know how I love you.” Your courage gives out and your voice veers away from your last words.

For a moment he just stares, then he seizes a handful of your tie and collar and hauls you in. In a flash he’s got you whirled around, your ass against the narrow table, your shoulders pressed to the wall. “Yes, I _know_ ,” he hisses an inch from your face. “How could I not know? But I haven’t touched your damned computer. All I have to do is look at you.” You’re too stunned to say anything at all. “You think I don’t see how you watch me? You think this hasn’t been driving me insane too? You think I don’t feel like Humbert motherfucking Humbert, like this isn’t anything but evidence of my _utter fucking failure_ and a complete violation of a sacred trust?”

You’re hearing the words but they barely compute. He gives you a shake by your lapels, crumpling the fabric in his fists. “So don’t talk to me like I know what I’m doing,” he says. “This is uncharted goddamn territory right here.”

He’s so close you can feel his breath on your face. You lick your lips. “Dave--”

He actually groans at that, low in his throat. For one horrifying moment you think he’s going to kiss you, but he swerves away and his mouth latches onto your neck, the soft spot under your ear. The heat and foreignness make you yelp involuntarily. He bites down. “Is this what you want?” he says, hot in your ear, bullying his way in between your legs. Jesus Christ, he’s grinding against your boner, and the embarrassment that seethes through you just makes you more desperately hard. His mouth is on your neck again, sucking hard, too hard, raising a bruise.

You scrabble desperately at his sides, trying to anchor yourself, fingers finding no purchase on the silk. You don’t know what to do. He rips at your tie, seizes two fistfuls of your shirt and _yanks_. Fabric tears and buttons actually fly -- you can hear them clatter on the floor. “Jesus _fuck_ \--” you start, but then his hands are on you, and his mouth. Your stomach twitches under his unfamiliar touch. His tongue drags over your nipple and you shudder, grabbing at his shoulders; he bites savagely and you cry out, turned on and terrified, “Shit, _Dave!”_

He tears at your belt and the complicated fastenings of your pants; his hands brush your hard-on through the fabric and you feel like the bottom is dropping out of the world. He’s moving too goddamn fast. You fumble for his wrists, trying to shove his hands away, but he gets a grip on your waistband and drags your pants and briefs down, dropping to his knees. Your erection bobs in front of his face and you burn suddenly with shame. “Is this what you were hoping for?” he snarls, and he grabs your junk and swallows you down.

You cry out, dizzy and grossly overwhelmed -- it’s too much, too fast. His fingers are locked tight around the base of your cock and the suction of his mouth is hard and relentless. This is the first time a hand other than your own has touched your dick since he stopped changing your diapers and bathing you and the fact that it’s the _same goddamn person_ makes your stomach churn, but it’s not enough to stop the blur of desire, the heat coiling in your balls as he sucks you off.

He stares up at you over the tops of his shades. The dress is pooled out around his knees, the color of old blood.

Rage is slithering up in your gut even as you whimper and squirm. How dare he -- how dare he -- how dare he take what you wanted and twist it into something even uglier than it was. How dare he scare you and hurt you and make you want it. How dare he wreck this. How dare he _ruin_ you. It all comes roaring together in your head, fear and arousal and betrayal -- you’re so close, and he feels it and makes an ugly eager sound and works his mouth harder.

All of a sudden you know what you want.

You grab a fistful of his hair and pull him off you, unbalancing him, and swipe at his face with your other hand. His shades go flying. You grab your cock, give yourself a few vicious pumps, and the wracking spasms burn through you, more pain than pleasure. You hold him there as you come with a hoarse shout, thick spurts spattering his cheek, his mouth.

Your cry echoes in your ears as your body shudders through the last of it, but when it dies away, the silence is claustrophobic. You’re both panting like you’ve run a race. With a jolt you release his hair, scramble to get your pants up and tuck yourself away. You rub your palms nervously on your thighs, as if you could get rid of what your hands just did. He reaches up and wipes his eye with two fingers, then blinks up at you. As he lifts his head, a thick glob of your spunk drips from his cheek and lands on the bodice of his dress.

“Shit,” you say, shaking. “Shit, shit, shit, goddamn fucking shit.”

You drop to your knees in front of him, curl your hand back inside your sleeve, and with the cuff of your beautiful suit you wipe off your brother’s face.

“I’m sorry,” you say raggedly. “Jesus, Dave, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

He holds very still. You’ve got the worst of it off when he reaches up and catches your hand. He extricates it from your sleeve and turns it palm-up, then bows his head swiftly, kisses the center of your palm. Your breath goes backward. He reaches out and touches your chest, where a bite-shaped bruise is blossoming left of center. You hiss, not at the pain, but at the touch. “Fuck, I’m a monster,” he says calmly.

_Both of us,_ you think. _I am what you made me._

As if he’d heard you, he hooks his hand behind your neck, pulling you forward so his forehead rests against yours.

Everything feels dim and distant, shaky like the aftermath of a panic attack. You trace your fingers lightly over the top edge of his bodice, the straps that climb to the crest of his shoulder. He takes a slow breath and lets it out. “Was this for me?” you ask softly.

“Happy birthday,” he says. “Everything I could possibly have fucked up, I did.”

“But how did you know -- if you didn’t --”

He rolls his eyes at you. “I told you, I haven’t gone anywhere near your precious computer. You’re nowhere near as slick as you think you are, kid. And you post a hell of a lot of pictures of dudes in lingerie.”

“You found my blog,” you say. He watches you, waiting for the rest of the pieces to click. “ _Rose_ sent you to my blog,” you amend. His silence is confirmation enough. “I’m going to kill Roxy. Carefully and creatively, over a long period of time.”

“Don’t be too hard on her. She was worried about you. And look, she had every right to be, that much is painfully obvious.” His voice is thick with self-loathing.

“So then why this?” you ask desperately, fingers sliding under the strap. Your other hand has gathered a fistful of his skirt.

He shrugs heavily. “You think I wanted to go on the way we were, with you following me around forever like the world’s prettiest little sexually frustrated homo-incestuous puppydog? I thought we should take this thing out for a test drive. Lay it all out and see what kind of grade-A biblical offense-in-the-eyes-of-God-and-man horseshit we were dealing with.”

He’s slipping back into his armor, locking himself away in his words. You look at the bitter downturn of his mouth, and you get it. Whatever this prickly thing is that’s grown up between you over the years, it means that you can never come at anything head-on -- it’s all feints and parries, sideways and slant. He probably thought that if he gave you what you wanted and could never ask for, but gave it in a way you could never accept, that he could protect himself -- protect _you_ \-- a little longer. It’s such a Dave move, too, desperate heroics and self-sacrifice and flashy deflection, all wrapped up in a pretty package with a shitty ironic bow on top.

You slice straight through the center of all his bullshit. “I love you,” you say. “I want you. And you’re not going to scare me away.” He looks up at you sharply. “You’re not.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t--” he starts, but you lean in and kiss him softly on his frowning mouth.

He just looks at you, speechless for once. “You’re not,” you repeat, and kiss him high on his cheekbone. The point of your shades almost jabs him in the eye, so you take them off and toss them aside. You kiss him at the outside corner of his eye, where faint creases are just beginning to show. You kiss him behind the point of his jaw, just under his ear.

His shoulders are high and rigid with tension, so you lay your hand over muscle and bone, kiss the slope of his neck above his glittering choker. He doesn’t stop you. Giddy with permission, you stroke your hand down his arm, up his back, lean and taut with muscle. You follow the seam of a well-hidden zipper, and at the point of the V at the back of his dress, your fingers find the tiny hanging pull.

You pull back a few inches and meet his eyes. He’s watching you, breathless and tense, expression unreadable, but he’s still not stopping you.

You work the zipper down slowly, easing the little teeth apart, tracing the widening gap of skin with your fingers. He is breathlessly still. When you encounter satin stiffened with boning halfway down his back, you can’t suppress the low sound in your throat. Your other hand is splayed against his stomach.

You get the zipper down to his tailbone, and reach up and finally slip the delicate straps down off his shoulders. Red silk comes shivering down, pooling in his lap.

“Dave, _fuck_.”

The corset is black, curiously unadorned, satin striped and dimpled by rows of stitching, curving bones. You bite your lip hard, going in for a closer look. From his hipbones to where it crests just below his nipples, it draws his waist into a gorgeous slender curve, while displaying and somehow emphasizing the masculinity of his chest, his sculpted shoulders. Below the bottom edge of the corset, a few tantalizing inches of flat stomach, garter straps draped down the hollows of his hipbones. A hint of black lace panties is barely visible under the spilled red silk in his lap. Your head is roaring and you could no more keep your hands off him than a drowning man could keep from gasping for air. You span his waist with your hands, slide them around to the back, stroke the corded laces, the strapped-in tension of his breath. You lean in, kiss the collarbones that have been driving you crazy all night, the hollow of his throat, down his breastbone, along the edge of the corset. Your lips rub softly over his nipple, which pebbles beneath your touch. Fascinated, you run just the tip of your tongue over it, and he hisses.

“Dirk...” It’s just a whisper. Desire and self-loathing are written out plain and raw on his naked face. “Dirk, you’re my _kid._ I can’t.”

“I don’t care,” you say, and the words are low and fierce and come bubbling out of you like tar. “We could be breaking every law and every taboo and I don’t give one goddamn. Do you really think anything else matters? If I have you, do you really think I care about anyone else on this whole sorry planet?” You run your hands up and down his tight-laced torso, settle on his hips and dig your thumbs in circles into his hipbones. He makes a sound under his breath, shifts slightly where he kneels. “I don’t care if this was for the paparazzi or the tabloids or just to shock every other blithering idiot in this stupid fucking town. If you want to tell yourself it was a publicity stunt, fine. But it’s my birthday, so I’m _taking what you fucking gave me.”_

You lean in, or he does, but either way his mouth is under yours, warm, softer than you would have thought, and then he makes that noise in his throat again and yields to you. You press your advantage, pulling him up flush against you, greedily claiming his mouth with perhaps more enthusiasm than skill, but he opens to you and you nearly lose your mind. The satin corset against your skin is maddening. When he kneels up, the dress drops away, and you palm his ass hungrily, tracing lace with your fingertips; he groans into your mouth and starts kissing you back in earnest, pushing his hips hard against yours.

Breathing a steady stream of muffled curses against your lips, he shoves your jacket and shirt down off your shoulders together, tangling your hands behind your back and leaving them there. Need and nerves jangle together in your stomach. There’s a hand in your hair, fingers twisting tight enough to sting. Your eyes close, your head drops back, and you’re ready to surrender your soul and your future and your entire disappointment of a life for his slim fingers, the pressure of his mouth.

He stops, though; releases you, pulls back. You open your eyes, and he’s looking at you with something like panic, something like despair. You struggle out of your shirt and jacket, cup his face in your hands.

“This won’t work,” he whispers.

“I know,” you whisper back.

“I’m going to break your heart.”

“It’s already broken,” you say. “It always has been. It’s splinters all the way down.”

He exhales hard, a laugh or a sob. His fingers trace over your brow, your cheek, your lower lip.

“Ok,” he says. “Fuck. Ok.”

He kisses you. You’re going to burn each other down, and leave nothing behind.


End file.
